Rumors of Closing Hill Middle School 'Were Killing Us'

If were to be shut down, the decision might as well be quick rather than drawn out. That was the viewpoint of Azella Metzger, president of Hill's PTA, during the Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday before there was a unanimous vote to close Hill.

“This is killing us at Hill," Metzger said during the pubic comment period. "Parents don’t want to get involved because they don’t know if the school will be there next year.”

Hill, which serves families in the downtown area, will close for the second time in its 48-year existence. Five panels that included a citizen advisory committee and four other groups made up of parents, district staff and school administrators presented their recommendations to the trustees for consolidation and equity.

Wednesday as kids poured into the school, they talked among each other about why the decision was made and what's going to happen next. Several students were seen hugging each other and wiping away tears. Staff members had a brief meeting before the first bell and said they couldn't talk to the media about the closure without clearing it through the district office.

Hill, built in 1953 on Diablo Avenue near Hill Road, is the oldest existing middle school in Novato. on the city's west side and in Ignacio are the other two public middle schools serving kids in sixth through eighth grades. was known as Hamilton Elementary before the trustees voted to add sixth grade for the 2009-2010 year and seventh grade this year before adding eighth grade next year.

Trustee Ross Millerick on Tuesday seconded the motion to close Hill because he said it makes fiscal sense. He did so after clarifying that Hill must lease its playground use from the city because the school district had sold the land to the city after the school was closed in the 1970s.

The closure's annual cost savings, as detailed in a budget report last year, put the dollar amount at $200,000.

“Anything we do fiscally helps,” said Superintendent Jan La Torre-Derby. “We’re coming into really bad times.”

“This district has successfully opened and closed programs to meet the needs of the community,” Millerick said. “If it doesn’t work, we are a district that can reverse this. I’m not fearful of going someplace we can’t come back from.”

According to 2009 statistics, the ethnic makeup of the Hill student body includes 52.1 percent whites, 36 percent Hispanics, five percent Asian-American and 4.9 percent black. Students considered English-language learners account for 29 percent of the student body, just above the district average of 21 percent. The socioeconomic profile of the student body is below the district median; 44 percent of the students are considered socioeconomically challenged versus the 33 percent median citywide. Forty-three percent of students' parents are college educated, below the district average of 53 percent.

The board also moved to locate an adult education center at the Hill campus and to open a second program that serves kindergarten through eighth grades opening in the 2012-2013 school year, following a model at Hamilton Meadow Park. An expanded elementary/middle school site will not be selected until a year from now, although Olive was mentioned as a possibility given its above-average acreage.

Among the second set of recommendations the panels presented upon was how to achieve equity among the schools.  All five panels recommended a return to neighborhood schools and most recommended redrawing district boundaries to ensure an equitable distribution of demographics, particularly among K-5 schools.

Metzger also asked the board to reconsider renaming the remaining schools to start with two fresh campuses. Leading one panel member to suggest the opening of “Ranchwood” and thereby blend two populations whose differences are “underscored by disparity in performance.”

One parent from Rancho School, however, remarked that “demographics are not a recipe for success.”

The board members had differences about how to act on the issue. Millerick shared his experiences with a school district in Santa Rosa that “did not address diversity in its own town” and now has a huge gang problem. “We cannot let that happen in Novato.”

Trustee Cindi Clinton remarked that she understood the concept of the recommendations but didn't understand the specifics.

In the end, the board directed district staff to attach action steps to the equity recommendations and bring those back to the board. A timeline was not specified.

Finally, given the school consolidation actions, the board decided to shelve the issue closing high school campuses during lunch hour until the next school year.

—  Novato Patch's Brent Ainsworth contributed to this report.